Worn out ships are broken down in order to salvage and recycle the materials the ship is made up of.
During breaking down of a worn out ship, the ship is normally dragged up onto a beach where it is dismantled and cut into pieces, often by the manual use of cutting torches. Breaking down in this manner in associated with several problems:
Mainly is manual labor used for operating the heavy steel cables that are used for dragging the ship up on to the beach and also for dismantling the ship and further also for transporting the dismantled ship parts. Various types of accidents and personnel injuries are therefore common. A further serious problem is that during breaking of the ship are toxic or environmental hazardous substances, such that particles from cutting torches used to cut the ships metal hull into pieces, released on the beach. These toxic substances are subsequently washed out to sea, where they pollute water and sea bottom. Oil and fuel in the ship could catch fire by particles from the cutting torch operation. Tanks also may explode.
The operations to be handled with by breaking down a worn out ship are inter alia the removal, treatment and disposal of polluted or dangerous materials as asbestos, waste materials and fluids, Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), bilge and ballast water, oil, fuel and paints, etc.
Furthermore, oil spill in the ship could be recovered. The above described type of breaking down a worn out ship is often situated in locations with poor infrastructure which makes transport of the broken down materials from the beach to recycling facilities difficult. Moreover, there exists sufficient barely no worker protection. Movable cranes are also difficult to use on sandy beaches.
An arrangement for breaking down ships is known from JP 2012025299 which discloses a floating dock having an open section into which a ship to be broken down is introduced. It still remains the disadvantage that the personnel must be lowered down into the open section to dismantle parts and to discharge hazardous fluids.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,111,114 discloses a ship's docking plant for breaking down ships according to the pre-characterising portions of the independent claims. This system requires deep water access alongshore and is limited to its function as it can only handle one ship at a time. The system according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,111,114 cannot be moved because it is anchored to the bottom of the sea. This system needs piles for their lifting system. Furthermore, this system cannot be used offshore. Moreover, it cannot collect all the poisonous and polluted material and toxic particles which can fall down from the ship.
The plant according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,111,114 uses only one big floating platform having two fixed side parts with a recess there between. The submergible portion is accommodated in the recess. Hence, this plant is limited to the width of the recess.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,796 discloses a method of breaking up ship hull. This method does not describe how to collect poisonous material. Due to this method, ships are first dismantled from the bow and aft ends and then finally at the middle thereof.
WO 2007/081198 describes an elevated dock which requires a deep water port system, not available in places where the most dismantling takes places today, generally called “beaching”. This dock is similar to a dry docking system and needs to be ashore.